A Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamp is well-known and typically uses multiple LEDs to collectively produce a source of light to illuminate a room. The LED lamp offers performance advantages over competing lighting technologies, such as longer life and higher efficiency, for example. However, unlike other lighting technologies, such as incandescent bulbs, which can operate at temperatures in excess of 1000° C. and can dissipate heat energy as infrared radiation (IR), the LED lamp cannot operate at such high temperatures, nor dissipate heat energy in the form of IR radiation. Thus, LED lamps include a thermal management system, to dissipate heat energy from the surface of LED lamp components, such as LED chips, to ensure that the semi-conductor temperature inside the LED chips does not exceed a temperature threshold.
LED lamps are routinely mounted within a recessed housing, such as in a ceiling of a building. When LED lamps are mounted within such recessed housings, the LED lamp may be positioned within an attic of the building, whose temperature may be as much as 40 or 50 degrees Celsius greater than the temperature in an air-conditioned room below. Conventionally, the heat energy from the LED chips is transferred out from the lamp body, which may have fin surfaces, to the air enclosed between the lamp body and the recessed housing. This air transfers the heat through normal buoyancy air movement to the recessed housing. Ultimately, the recessed housing conducts the heat out to the attic. As appreciated by one of skill in the art, the luminous efficiency of an LED lamp is determined by the LED chip temperature and, subsequently, the efficiency of the thermal management system of the LED lamp.
LED lamps are typically sold based on a desired luminous power output, and a majority of the cost of the LED lamp is based on a minimum number of LEDs required to collectively generate the desired luminous power output. The minimum number of LEDs is based on the efficiency of the thermal management system of the LED lamp. Thus, if the efficiency of the thermal management system is improved, a fewer number of LEDs may be required, which would consequently reduce the consumer cost of the LED lamp.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an improved thermal management system for LED lamps mounted within a recessed housing, to ensure that the surface temperature of the LED lamp components does not exceed the temperature threshold, while simultaneously reducing the cost of the LED lamps.